Tennessee. Candidates wishing to become initiated into this particular organization of the Ku Klux Klan take their oaths as part of the naturalization ritual.
Candidates are brought before the Klan for acceptance into the Invisible Empire and are quizzed on their Klan craft and Klan history. They are instructed in the history of the six eras of the Klan. They participate in swearing certain oaths and at the conclusion they are “Knighted” as in the days of old, by anointing with sacred waters and a sword touch on both shoulders followed by a benediction. At the end of the ceremony, the new citizens of the Invisible Empire are greeted and welcomed by the officiating officers.
Photograph and caption by Anthony Karen, all rights reserved.
Missouri. Husband-and-wife candidates wishing to join the Ku Klux Klan partake in a naturalization ritual. Proposed Klansmen and -women are blindfolded, and then with one arm placed on the shoulder of the person before them, led through the woods, at times at a vigorous pace. The link is not to be broken as they are questioned and intimidated occasionally by the sound of a firearm. Like other hazing rituals, the naturalization ritual has a symbolic purpose. It is also meant to build mutual trust and loyalty and reveal personal bravery and dedication.
Photograph and caption by Anthony Karen, all rights reserved.
Pennsylvania. Dan and his youngest daughter Ostarah during a state meeting at Dan’s home. Dan is the Pennsylvania state director for a large white nationalist organization. The purpose of the event was to attract new members from the region.
In 2013, a year after Dan and Sabrina gave birth to their second child diagnosed with autism, they started reading about national socialism. The couple felt the diagnosis of both children was somehow related to human interventions, such as hydraulic fracturing and mandatory vaccinations for children attending public schools. After a series of personal and career misfortunes, the ideology of national socialism seemed to them to fit their core beliefs and quickly became part of their daily lives.
Today, they remain outspoken members of the white nationalist movement and have eleven children, four of whom have been diagnosed with autism.
Photograph and caption by Anthony Karen, all rights reserved.
Kansas. Tim, a former Klansman, white nationalist, and born-again Christian. When he was a member of the NSM (National Socialist Movement), he got the number 29111 tattooed on his arm. This number matched the one on a gold SS Social Member pin he had purchased.
“In 2010 it was confirmed that I had Jewish heritage. After I found out I was Jewish, I had the Star of David tattooed over the SS,” Tim explained. Soon after he sold the pin.
Photograph and caption by Anthony Karen, all rights reserved.
Florida. Ken, a former Nazi and Klansman, during the first of several laser tattoo removal treatments.
Photograph and caption by Anthony Karen, all rights reserved.
Joining and Leaving
The sociologist Pete Simi, co-author of American Swastika: Inside the White Power Movement’s Hidden Spaces of Hate, has been studying extremist groups and violence for more than twenty-five years. As part of his research, he has conducted interviews with numerous current and former members of the white supremacist movement about their reasons for joining. While the individual stories are remarkably diverse, he found that the most common background of the men and women who join these groups is some kind of family or life disruption, such as the loss of a loved one or a job, the illness of a child, a divorce, or a near-death experience.
Simi also addresses a common misconception that only people from lower socioeconomic classes join these kinds of groups, while, in fact, people from a wide cross-section of socioeconomic backgrounds become involved. He also found that certain characteristics of thinking, such as low tolerance for ambiguity and a lack of critical thinking, make a person more susceptible to extremist ideology. White supremacist organizations, then, oversimplify a highly complex world, attracting in this way people who feel lost or are looking for some easy answers.
Simi argues that ideology is not necessarily the initial attraction that draws a person to a white supremacist group. While they share some of the basic racist beliefs, new members rarely fully appreciate the ideology upon joining. Interestingly, gradual familiarity with the ideology and rituals causes some to become more committed and others to leave. Former members interviewed by Simi explained that the ideas and the lifestyle became too constraining and the level of social control too overwhelming. Some felt moral uneasiness about the violence or grew tired of the backstabbing and infighting that happens regularly in white supremacist organizations.
Next category: “Women and Gender Roles”.
Further Reading:
Eli Saslow, Rising Out of Hatred: The Awakening of a Former White Nationalist (New York: Anchor Books, 2018).
Pete Simi and Robert Futrell, White Power Movement’s Hidden Spaces of Hate (Lanham, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2010).
Pete Simi, Kathleen Blee, Matthew De Michele, Steven Windisch, “Addicted to Hate: Identity Residual among Former White Supremacists,” American Sociological Review, vol. 82, no. 6 (December 2017), pp. 1167–1187.
Pete Simi, “Why They Join,” SPLC Intelligence Report, 2014 Spring Issue, https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2014/why-they-join (accessed July 6, 2023).
Thomas A. Tarrants, Consumed by Hate, Redeemed by Love: How a Violent Klansman Became a Champion of Racial Reconciliation (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2019).
Steven Windisch, Pete Simi, Kathleen Blee, Matthew DeMichele, “On the Permissibility of Homicidal Violence: Perspectives from Former U.S. White Supremacists,” Perspectives on Terrorism, vol. 14, no. 6 (December 2020), pp. 65–76.
